2019上海龙凤419

The Agualta Vale roundabout in St. Mary has been re-named the Robert Schuman Roundabout, in honour of one of the founding fathers of the European Union (EU).This has been done by the administration to recognise Mr. Schuman’s contribution to advancing world peace, as well as the EU’s input in developing the 100-kilometre third segment of the North Coast Highway, between Ocho Rios, in St. Ann, and Port Antonio, in Portland.The EU financed the development at a cost of $10 billion (€80 million), through grant funding, which included re-modelling of the roundabout, situated midway along the corridor.The symbolic name change was formally effected during a ceremony at the roundabout, on May 9. The occasion was also used to commemorate Europe Day in Jamaica.In his address, Transport, Works and Housing Minister, Dr. the Hon. Omar Davies, noted that Mr. Schuman was a visionary, not only for European integration, but among nations globally. “(He) saw that if there was collaboration between nations, if everyone could find a common objective to work towards, then war, which had so adversely affected the (European) countries and, indeed, other countries… would become a thing of the past,” Dr. Davies said, while conveying the administration’s gratitude for the EU’s support for a range of developmental projects islandwide. Meanwhile, Head of the EU Delegation in Jamaica, Her Excellency Ambassador Paola Amadei, noted that the highway’s development is the largest infrastructure project funded by the EU, since the European Commission Delegation was established in Jamaica in 1976.“We celebrate the completion of a major component of Jamaica’s road infrastructure, critical for the social and economic development of north eastern parishes and for the safety of its road users,” she said. Ambassador Amadei pointed out that Jamaica has enjoyed close economic and political ties with European nations for many years, and that the process of European integration has brought “a constant enhancement” of these relationships.“On behalf of the European Union, I wish to express my sincere gratitude to the Government of Jamaica for deciding to name the roundabout after Mr. Robert Schuman…in honour of his pioneering work towards a united Europe and for his invaluable contribution in building a more peaceful world,” she said.Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade Minister, Senator the Hon. A. J. Nicholson, who also addressed the function, said renaming of the roundabout in honour of Mr. Schuman is not a “minor conferment,” as the EU, in its process of integration, unity, and diversity, had the tenets of the Schuman Declaration, as its “compass.”“Robert Schuman, through this Declaration, crafted some 63 years ago, signaled to the world, his firm belief that a political and economic union was required for ensuring perpetual peace, stability and prosperity across Europe. Despite the many challenges that our nations face in today’s globalized world, the EU continues to be recognized for its commitment to peace, democracy and deepening of integration among its members,” he said.Senator Nicholson assured that the administration remains steadfast in maintaining the relationship with the EU that facilitates shared development objectives.Other speakers included: Jamaica Producers Group Limited Chairman, Charles Johnston, who gave his company’s undertaking to maintain the roundabout; former Custos of St. Mary, Hon. Alrick Pottinger, who deputized for current Custos, Hon. Jeffrey McKitty, who was unavoidably absent; and Opposition Spokesman on Transport, Works and Housing, Karl Samuda.Contact: Douglas McIntoshread more

Floyd Mayweather does not like being locked up so much, which is a surprise to no one.And surely he did not like the decision that came down Wednesday from a judge who denied his request that he be released from jail because the low-quality food and water have threatened his health.Justice of the Peace Melissa Saragoas wrote in her decision that Mayweather, who began serving and 87-day sentence for domestic battery on June 1, shoulde should eat and drink what is being given to him behind bars. She also wrote that water has been made available to Mayweather around the clock and the only reason he isn’t eating properly is because he refuses to eat the provided meals. Saragosa said Mayweather’s complaints that he is unable to exercise in jail are also unfounded.“While the physical training areas and times provided to (Mayweather) may not be consistent with his prior regimen, he is indeed provided sufficient space and time for physical activity if he so chooses,” Saragosa decided.A mere 10 days after Mayweather turned himself in to begin his three-month sentence, his legal team filed an emergency motion Monday asking the court to put him under house arrest or move him into the general jail population — something that jail officials had avoided to protect the celebrity fighter. The motion claimed the undefeated champion might never fight again because he was getting out of shape in solitary confinement.Mayweather lawyer Richard Wright didn’t immediately return a phone message late Wednesday. Wright said earlier this week that he was not seeking special treatment for the 35-year-old fighter.Mayweather pleaded guilty last year to reduced domestic battery charges stemming from an attack on his former girlfriend while two of their children watched. The plea deal allowed him to avoid trial on felony charges that could have gotten Mayweather up to 34 years in prison if he was convicted. Mayweather was sentenced Dec. 22, but was allowed to remain free long enough to make a Cinco de Mayo weekend fight.Mayweather’s legal team told the court this week that his personal physician, Dr. Robert Voy, visited the jail Friday and determined the fighter had lost muscle tone. Voy estimated Mayweather was consuming fewer than 800 calories a day instead of his usual 3,000 or 4,000 calories. Mayweather also wasn’t drinking enough because he wasn’t allowed bottled water and doesn’t enjoy tap water.“I am concerned about Floyd withdrawing, developing anger he cannot dissipate through the usual means of dedicated exercise and training,” Voy wrote in an affidavit. “Boxing has been Mr. Mayweather’s life since he was a young man and we need champions of this type to continue to their natural retirement and hopefully their contributions to society thereafter.”read more

Two Malaysian women were caned Monday for having lesbian sex in violation of strict Islamic laws, despite an outcry from activists at the “cruel and unjust” punishment.The case has sparked widespread condemnation and focused attention on what rights groups say is a deteriorating climate for the gay community in the Muslim-majority country.Campaigners said it was the first time that women in Malaysia have been caned for violating a sharia regulation which forbids same-sex relations.The country operates a dual-track legal system and Islamic courts can handle religious and family matters for Muslim citizens, as well as cases such as adultery.The women, aged 22 and 32, were arrested in April by Islamic enforcement officers after they were found in a car in a public square in northern Terengganu state, one of the country’s most conservative areas.The pair, whose identities have not been revealed, pleaded guilty last month to breaking Islamic laws and were sentenced to six strokes of the cane each and a fine of 3,300 ringgit ($800).They were caned at the Sharia High Court in Kuala Terengganu, state capital of Terengganu, a court official confirmed to AFP.The women’s conviction sparked a storm of criticism. Before the caning was carried out, Gwen Lee, Amnesty International’s Malaysia head, slammed the punishment as “cruel and unjust”.Malaysia “must end the use of caning and repeal the laws that impose these torturous punishments completely,” she said.Thilaga Sulathireh, from transgender rights group Justice for Sisters, said the caning would “increase the impunity of perpetrators to carry out acts of violence” aimed at gay people.Concerns have been mounting in recent weeks in Malaysia, a multi-ethnic country where some 60 per cent of the population is Muslim, about a deteriorating climate for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community.The Islamic affairs minister has spoken out against homosexuals and ordered pictures of LGBT activists to be removed from a public exhibition, while a transgender woman was brutally attacked in the southern state of Negeri Sembilan.Malaysian Muslims have traditionally practised a tolerant brand of Islam but concerns have been growing in recent years that attitudes are becoming more conservative.read more

Wallace D. Loh says UM’s Byrd Stadium should be renamed.University of Maryland at College Park President Wallace D. Loh recommended changing the name of the university’s football stadium from Byrd Stadium, which honors a longtime university president who was a staunch advocate against integration, to Maryland Stadium.The recommendation was made to the University System of Maryland’s Board of Regents, which has oversight of building names. The Board of Regents will consider this request at a hearing on Dec. 11.“This is a difficult and emotion-laden issue,” Loh said in a campus-wide email announcing his decision on Dec. 7. “Any outcome will likely please few.”Harry C. “Curley” Byrd was a former football player who taught English and history and served as athletic director, eventually rising to university president. Byrd was president from 1935 until 1954, a time when the campus grew significantly.President Loh states in his campus-wide email that “President Byrd is rightly regarded as ‘Father and Builder’ of UMD over a 43-year career here, retiring in 1954. He dramatically increased enrollment, faculty, funding, and the size of the campus. He laid the foundation for today’s achievements. He earned his place in our University’s history.”But he is also very well known for his opposition to racial integration in the beginning stages of the civil rights movement.When Baltimore’s Parren J. Mitchell filed a lawsuit to be admitted to the university’s graduate school in 1950, Byrd issued an order to set up classes for him in Baltimore in hopes of thwarting the lawsuit. A court ordered that Mitchell be granted full status in College Park.Mitchell went on to earn a master’s degree from College Park, teach at Morgan State, work in politics and win the election to Congress in 1970, where he would lead the Congressional Black Caucus. He died in 2007 at age 85.In October, the Board of Regents unanimously approved renaming the Art-Sociology Building in his honor. On Dec. 3, the university held a ceremony to celebrate the newly renamed building in Mitchell’s honor. On hand that day was senior sociology major and activist Colin Byrd, who is not related to the stadium’s namesake. Byrd, with the aid of a megaphone, challenged President Loh referencing that only 1 percent of the university’s contracts in 2014 were given to Black vendors with Minority Business Enterprise status, which he described as a form of economic injustice. “That’s not acceptable, and I know you’re not going to answer, but I have to say this because you need to call this out for what it is, this is B.S.” Byrd said according to the Diamondback.In an interview with the AFRO Byrd said “I think it [the campus-wide email] goes down in the history of the University of Maryland as a turning point. Where we tell our athletes and recruits going forward that no longer will you have to play the sport you love within the symbolic shadows of someone who would have hated you.”The outrage of buildings and monuments being named after pro-segregationist individuals on campuses is not isolated to the University of Maryland. On Nov. 18 the Black Justice League, a student organization at Princeton University, organized a 32 hour protest to improve race relations on campus which included occupying university president Christopher Eisgruber’s office. One of their primary demands was the removal of the name of President Woodrow Wilson, one of the university’s most honored alumni and a former university president, from buildings and schools on campus. Martin A. Mbugua, a spokesperson for Princeton, told the Washington Post that Eisgruber is listening to the students demands and that, ”The conversation about that [removing Wilson’s name from the building] will continue.”read more

And Disney is prepared to invest heavily in Disney+, although not on the order of Netflix (which analysts project will have a $15 billion total content spend in 2019). For Disney’s fiscal year 2020 (which ends in the September quarter of next year), the company expects to spend $1 billion in cash on original programming for Disney+, rising to to around $2.5 billion by 2024, CFO Christine McCarthy told analysts at the Disney investor day earlier this month.By fiscal year 2024, the company projects that Disney+ will encompass over 120 recent movie releases and more than 500 library films; over 10,000 TV episodes; and more than 50 original series and 10 original films and specials.Both in the near and long term, Disney is well positioned to be a significant SVOD player, according to Dallas Lawrence, chief brand officer at ad-tech vendor OpenX. “If content is king, Disney owns the castle,” he said, adding that the media conglomerate operates an “unrivaled content factory of beloved movie franchises and television shows,” including those from Star Wars, Marvel and Pixar.Disney+ has plenty of room to gain share of consumer SVOD spending — it’s not a zero-sum game. On a related note, as consumers increasingly cut the cord on pay TV in favor of OTT services, Netflix could even benefit from the entry of Disney+, WarnerMedia, Apple TV+ and others.One data point here: A recent survey commissioned by OpenX found that American consumers who use over-the-top video services said they’re willing to pay upwards of $100 per month on average for self-made bundles of subscriptions. Of course, what people say and what they do can be very different. In any case, at $6.99 per month, Disney+ will be an attractive option, even if Disney later hikes the price a bit. The survey was conducted online by Harris Poll from Feb. 13-March 6, 2019, among 2,002 U.S. consumers 18 or older who reported using at least one OTT service.Disney has really aggressive targets — McCarthy’s model forecast 60 million-90 million Disney+ subscribers by end of FY 2024, two-thirds of those outside the U.S. It’s clear Disney has the content assets, powerful brands, financial wherewithal and the addressable market to make a big run at SVOD. The key question is how quickly it can ramp Disney+ into a sustainable business. Popular on Variety First of all, it’s no surprise that Disney+ won’t have a title count comparable to other SVOD players out of the gate. More important, raw numbers aren’t everything: They don’t reflect the total value or appeal of a subscription service.Here’s a critical point: Disney’s top content beats both Netflix and Amazon in consumer perceptions of quality, according to Ampere Analysis. The U.K.-based firm compared the top 100 original-labeled titles (movies and TV seasons) currently available across top U.S. SVOD platforms. The Ampere Rating grades content on a scale of 1-100 (with 100 being the best) based on a proprietary algorithm that assesses user opinion of individual titles.What Ampere’s analysis found is that the existing U.S. catalog of Disney content ranks above Amazon and Netflix, trailing only HBO (see chart below).“Every Disney title will need to guarantee an audience, but with the entirety of Disney and Fox’s library to choose from, that’s very achievable,” said Richard Cooper, research director at Ampere Analysis.Notwithstanding its relatively small title count, the Disney+ direct-to-consumer service will pack a huge punch with high-profile, big-name movies and shows. Those include the Marvel and Star Wars franchises, classic Disney and Pixar films, Fox titles including 30 seasons of “The Simpsons,” and original films and series, including Star Wars-set show “The Mandalorian” from Jon Favreau. Read more about the Disney+ lineup here: Disney+ Lineup: All the Shows and Movies Confirmed for Streaming Service.Note, too, that Disney is winding down its licensing deal with Netflix, which previously had an exclusive SVOD window in the U.S. and Canada for Disney movies. Starting with 2019 releases, all Mouse House titles will be available to stream only on Disney+; those include “Captain Marvel,” “Toy Story 4,” “Avengers: Endgame,” “Frozen II,” the live-action remakes of “Aladdin” and “The Lion King,” and “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” (Episode IX). ‘Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker’ Stars Tease How Saga Ends Related What’s Coming to Netflix in September 2019 For reference, per Ampere Analysis, here’s how the number of Disney+ selections in the first year will stack up against other streaming platforms: And here is Ampere Analysis’ comparison of the top 100 movie titles available on SVOD services: Disney will roll into the subscription VOD wars with a smaller content selection than rivals — with a strategy of playing to quality, not quantity.Disney+, the Mouse House’s new SVOD entry launching in the U.S. this November at $6.99 monthly, will cost nearly half of Netflix’s standard HD plan. But in its first year, Disney+ will have less than one-fifth of the selections on Netflix in the U.S., according to a study by research firm Ampere Analysis.In the first year of launch, Disney+ will include 7,500 episodes of current and past TV shows and 500 movies, according to Disney. That represents just 16% of Netflix’s U.S. catalog of 47,000 TV episodes and 12.5% of the Netflix movie library of 4,000 titles, Ampere Analysis estimates.In addition, Disney+ will have a lighter TV lineup than Hulu, Amazon Prime Video and CBS All Access, as well as fewer movies than Prime Video — which includes more than 12,000 titles — Hulu, Starz Play, and HBO Go, according to Ampere’s study. (See charts below.) ×Actors Reveal Their Favorite Disney PrincessesSeveral actors, like Daisy Ridley, Awkwafina, Jeff Goldblum and Gina Rodriguez, reveal their favorite Disney princesses. Rapunzel, Mulan, Ariel,Tiana, Sleeping Beauty and Jasmine all got some love from the Disney stars.More VideosVolume 0%Press shift question mark to access a list of keyboard shortcutsKeyboard Shortcutsplay/pauseincrease volumedecrease volumeseek forwardsseek backwardstoggle captionstoggle fullscreenmute/unmuteseek to %SPACE↑↓→←cfm0-9Next UpJennifer Lopez Shares How She Became a Mogul04:350.5x1x1.25×1.5x2xLive00:0002:1502:15read more